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unto me, As thou livest, and thy head liveth, it is not at this hour only, but three times every day the voice says these words. And not only so, but when the Israelites enter the synagogues, and the houses of study, and say, Amen, may his great name be blessed,' the Holy One, blessed be He, shakes his head, and says, Blessed is the King who is praised in his house; but what profit has the father who sends his children into captivity," &c. Here we have the testimony of R. Jose to the truth of the fact, that God does thus complain in the manner described above, and we have the Prophet Elijah swearing that this happens three times every day. It is plain, therefore, that the authors of the Talmud knew of no mystical interpretation and intended none. It was their simple belief that God observed the three watches of the night, and at the beginning of each roared like a lion. And if this passage must be taken literally, why should the other passage respecting the distribution and employments of the day be taken figuratively? The literal interpretation of the one furnishes a strong argument for the literal interpretation of the other. And it is certainly of no use to ascribe a mystical sense to the one, whilst the other is interpreted literally. The advocates of the oral law gain nothing by it, for the one is not more absurd nor more unworthy of the Deity than the other. Nothing can exceed the folly of representing God as observing the night-watches, and roaring like a lion for grief, because he sent Israel into captivity. Nothing can be more blasphemous than the assertion that God does not foresee the results of his own actions, and that he is afterwards obliged to sit down and mourn over what he has done. This one passage, which cannot be explained away, is quite sufficient to show that the rabbies were utterly ignorant of the nature of God; and that, however they might be acquainted with the letter of the Law and the Prophets, they knew

nothing of the real meaning of their writings. This one excess of folly and absurdity entirely overthrows all the claims and pretensions of the oral law in which it is found.

But there is another feature in the passage which we cannot pass without notice, and that is, the total disregard of truth which it manifests. R. Jose's story is evidently a barefaced and wilful lie, unless we say, that when he went into the ruin to pray, he fell asleep, and dreamed that he heard the Bath Kol and had this conversation with Elijah; but either supposition will equally destroy the credit of the Talmud. If it be a lie, it is one of the most profane and wicked lies that can be imagined. We have here a professed teacher of the law telling not only a falsehood about his intercourse with Elijah, but daring falsely to assert that he heard the voice of God mourning over the ruins of the temple. The most profane and wicked lie that can be devised is that which introduces God himself, and trifles with the sacred character of the Deity. If this story be a lie, it oversets the Talmud and the Talmudical religion at once. A religion built upon falsehoods, must itself be necessarily false. But if the other supposition be adopted, that R. Jose mistook a dream for a reality, what shall we say of a religion whose teachers tell their dreams as sacred truths? And what shall we say of the compilers of the Talmud, who were unable to detect the folly and profanity of this narrative, and actually inserted it in their oral law as an undoubted fact? This supposition may save R. Jose from the unhappy character of a liar, but it will not do much towards proving the truth of the oral law; for there it is not given as a dream, but as a fact. R. Jose was silly enough to tell his dream as a reality; and the rabbies to whom he told it were silly enough to believe; and the most learned men of the Rabbinists at that time were silly enough to embody it in their collection of holy and undoubted tra

ditions. We do not mean to ascribe any peculiar degree of folly to the rabbies. Persons calling themselves Christians have been just as foolish, have believed stories just as absurd, and have handed them down as religious truths. But then, we do not receive these legends as a part and parcel of our religion. We are as free to say of them, as of the Talmudic fables, that they are wicked falsehoods. But the modern Jews tell us that the Talmud is a divine book-that it contains their religion, and that without it Moses and the Prophets are unintelligible; and therefore we point out these fables as plain proofs of the falsehood of such an assertion. We wish to direct the Jewish attention to that system which they have called their religion for the last eighteen hundred years, and which they have preferred to Christianity. We desire that they should consider what they have gained, by expelling the family of Levi from the teacher's office and choosing the rabbies as their religious guides. We ask every Israelite of common sense, whether R. Jose and his companions are trustworthy leaders in the way to salvation; and whether they are still prepared to follow the religion of a man who can only be acquitted of being a liar by admitting that he is a dreamer? Or, whether they still choose to worship the Deity proclaimed by the rabbies-a Deity subject to succession of time-imperfect in knowledge so as to require daily study-requiring amusement, and therefore playing for three hours every day with Leviathan-and liable to disappointment, so as to be obliged to spend the night, in mourning over one of his most deliberate and solemn acts?

We are sure that every Israelite would be sadly offended at being told, that he does not worship the God of his fathers, but a strange god, invented by the imagination of the rabbies; and yet, if he worship the god of the Talmud, it is nothing but the truth. The god of the Talmud is

certainly not the God of the Bible. Israelites are often shocked at the folly and wickedness of those whom they see falling down before stocks and stones; and yet, if they receive the oral law, and believe in a Deity who plays with Leviathan, &c., the object of their worship is not a whit more rational. They are just as guilty of idolatry, and the only way in which they can clear themselves from the charge is, by rejecting the oral law, and forsaking that superstition which the rabbies have palmed off upon them as the religion of their fathers. It is a most deplorable and melancholy sight to behold that nation, which once was the sole depository of truth, enslaved by a system so senseless; but it is more melancholy still to think, that there is not one among her sons who has the moral courage to denounce its falsehood, and to vindicate the truth as taught by Moses. The priests, the sons of Levi, were once zealous for the honour of God, and united with Moses in destroying the golden calf; but where are they now, and where is their zeal? Alas! they too, are found amongst the worshippers of the Talmudical deity, and uphold the system which has expelled them from their holy office.

No. XLII.

TITLE OF RABBI.

THAT the people, at present scattered over the whole world, and known by the name of Jews, are descendants of the chosen people of God, we freely admit. That the Old Testament contains prophecies of their future return to the God and the land of their fathers, and their subsequent happiness and glory, we firmly believe: but, that the re

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ligion which they at present profess is the religion of Moses, we confidently deny. Modern Judaism has not retained the doctrines of Moses; no not even with respect to the fundamental article of religion, the nature of God. Our last number showed how widely the rabbies have departed from the Scripture representation of the divine character, and the number preceding proved that the Jews have not retained even the outward form of the Mosaic edifice. Indeed we know not any problem more difficult of solution than, to assign a reason, why the Rabbinic Jews profess any respect at all for Moses, when they have rejected both the form and the substance of his teaching. If they boldly denied his authority, or asserted that the Mosaic law was long since abrogated, and the Rabbinic precepts given in its stead, we could at least give them credit for consistency; but at present we cannot possibly divine their motives for professing attachment to the lawgiver of their forefathers. Their conduct for ages would appear to indicate a fixed determination to get rid and keep clear of every thing Mosaic, and that for the mere purpose of having something else; for no one can pretend, that the new law and the new teachers, that they have chosen, can lay any claim to superior excellence or antiquity. Of the value of the Rabbinic teaching we have given many proofs; and now think of examining a little the novelty of the Rabbinic order. It is certain that the word, rabbi, does not occur in the law of Moses nor the prophets; it is, therefore, clearly not Mosaic. This one fact does in itself go far to shake the authority of modern Judaism and the oral law. There we cannot go a step without hearing of the rabbies-Rabbi Eliezer said this, and Rabbi Bar Bar Chanah said that. The whole oral law is made up of the sayings of the rabbies, and yet neither their name nor their order was so much as known to Moses our master. The other favourite appellation of the Tal